1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to print job processing method and apparatus, and more particularly, to print job processing method and apparatus for a print shop employing multiple printers and finishing devices.
2. Description of Related Art
In an environment that processes a large number of print jobs with multiple printers, there has been a need to manage print jobs efficiently in an organized fashion. Examples of such an environment are professional print shops and print/copy departments at large organizations, where a variety of print requests, such as large-volume duplication and large document printing, needs to be processed and completed by utilizing multiple printers within a short turn-around time. These environments are collectively referred to as “print shops” in this application. Typically, each printing job specifies a source file that electrically contains a document to be printed, and specifies various the job requirements such as the size, color and the type of the paper on which the document should be printed, the printing resolution, duplex or simplex printing, finishing conditions such as book, staple, collate printing, etc., depending on a print job requester's needs. These job requirements are specified in a job ticket for each print job. In order to process a large volume of print jobs that differ in terms of these job parameters, a print shop utilizes multiple commercial grade printers. Typically, one or more black & white (B&W) printers are in operation to process B&W printing. Color printers are also installed to handle color printing. Each of these printers, however, has limitations on available printer settings, such as the paper size, the paper type, resolution settings, etc. In addition, the print shop employs various finishing devices, such as collators, staplers, hole punchers, folding machines, binding machines, etc. When a large volume of printing jobs is to be handled with multiple printers and finishing devices, it is a daunting task to assign each printing job to an appropriate printer with appropriate finishing devices.
An example of a print shop is schematically illustrated in more detail FIG. 1. In the print shop system, client computers 1 and 2 are connected to a server 4 via a local area network (LAN). Scanner 3 is also optionally connected to server 4 via the LAN. In this example, B&W printers 5 and color printers 6 (only one each is drawn in FIG. 1 to avoid overcrowding) are connected to the server through the LAN. In this example, printers 5-6 are commercial standard high-end printers that can handle high speed, high quality printing. Each of the printers 5-6 has multiple paper trays to store paper of various sizes, color, and types. Further, some of the printers 5-6 are equipped with an output sorting mechanism with multiple output trays to perform collate printing or other print finishing functions. A printer 8a is explicitly shown as having an associated finishing device 8b. Another printer 7 is shown as being connected over a network. Each printer has one or more display monitors to display the status of the printing and various warning and instruction messages to a user. Each printer is equipped with its own central processing unit (CPU) and appropriate hardware/software to control its own printing operations, and communicates with server 4 via a LAN. Some of these printers may also be multifunction printers that can perform copying and scanning of documents. Appropriate server software is installed in server 4 to perform various standard network administrative functions. FIG. 1 also illustrates an offline finishing device 9. An offline finishing device is a stand-alone device typically manually operated by an operator.
Print job management software is typically installed on server 4 for managing a large number of print jobs that come into the print shop. The print job management software may be stored in either a read only memory (ROM) or a hard disk drive (HDD), which can be accessed by the CPU of the server 4. Once a print shop operator calls the print job management software, server 4 reads out the print job management software from the ROM or HDD to a random access memory (RAM) of the server to carry out various functions of the software, including management of print jobs. The print job management software preferably is designed to run on Windows OS, Macintosh OS, or Unix X Windows or other computer operating systems implementing a user interface (UI), such as a touch screen and/or a mouse and a keyboard, coupled with a display monitor. Server 4 (or any suitable data processing apparatus) running print job management software is hereinafter referred to as “print job management server”, or more broadly as “print job management apparatus” in this disclosure. Print jobs received by the print shop are forwarded to the server 4, so that numerous print jobs are analyzed and processed by the server.